Welcome to the exciting world of homeschooling! If you're reading this, you're likely considering homeschooling to be a significant and potentially transformative decision for your family. Understand homeschool is more than an educational choice; it's a lifestyle that opens up a world of personalized learning and boundless opportunities.
What is Homeschooling?
At its core, homeschooling is about taking charge of your child's education. On one end of the homeschool scale, this looks like enrolling them in an online or hybrid school. At the other end, it looks like throwing out curriculum all together and just going with the flow of what your child wants to learn. It offers the flexibility to tailor education to your child’s unique needs, interests, and learning pace. Whether it's exploring the depths of space in a science lesson or turning a history lesson into a field trip, homeschooling makes learning vivid, relevant, and fun.
The Benefits of Homeschooling
Homeschooling can strengthen family bonds, cater to specific learning styles, and allow for a customized curriculum that challenges and engages your child in ways traditional schools may not. It also provides an environment to instill values and beliefs important to your family. Homeschooling can teach much more information in much less time and in a way that is retained by your children. Homeschooling can offer a safe haven, away from any potential violence that may occur in the public school system. It can be a way to safely and with measure expose your children to the world. When homeschooling properly, there are only benefits for your children. You can read about the mistakes I made when I first started homeschooling in my other article.
You can visit the NHERI for great research on the benefits of homeschool.
Real-Life Success Stories
Check out these success stories that were told to me in my social media group. This is the question I asked. “If you decided to homeschool to see a change in your family or kids, did it work? Did switching to homeschool solve the problem?”
Yes! Behaviors/attitude – improved or gone depending on the kid. Math & reading skills – improved exponentially. Kindness and faith – greatly increased. Exhaustion – decreased. I mean every way I looks at it, it’s better for us. That doesn’t mean there aren’t hard days and set backs, but overall so much better on all fronts.
-HD
My middle struggled with reading. We went through Child Find to try to get him into preschool so he could get help. Testing proved he had a speech delay but was “2 points too smart” and because it didn't interfere with his education they were not going to help him or accept him into preschool on scholarship. Finally he is old enough for Kindergarten. We have our first parent teacher conference. In a polite way basically told me he is the worst reader in the class. I told the teacher I have been trying to get him help but was denied. We consider repeating Kindergarten next year. Two weeks later the pandemic shutdown. Remote learning was horrible. 3 kids sharing my laptop, among other headaches. I decided if I'm doing it I want to do it my way. The next year we tried homeschool, with an umbrella. Testing showed he was halfway through kindergarten level. I work with him everyday and 6 weeks into homeschool we jump him into 1st grade. How wonderful we didn't have to wait a whole school year. We moved up when he was ready. He is now 4th grade, but 3rd grade writing. I love that we get to meet the kids where they are. My oldest is 6th grade, doing 7th grade language but 5th grade math. My youngest is 2nd grade, doing 1st grade handwriting but 3rd grade math. Each kid is different. My oldest also struggled with sitting still and was a distraction to the class. Homeschool works so much better for her. She was even losing weight in public because lunch is 15min and she would rather talk, coming home starving. Lunch is as long as they want it at home. We are thriving at home.
-JAM
My son was way behind in reading. Absolutely hated it was in a special group to help ect. He got worse rather than better. We pulled him and now he picks up books on his own
-CFhe asks me how to spell words/pronounce words. He writes his own stories about wildlife and our family adventures. Total change
Yes my kids started re-engaging in learning and relationships have improved. It's taken time, work and most importantly prayer but I am seeing the changes. A lot more time than expected but it is happening.
-IB
We switched predominately for mental health reasons. And, yes, it has helped, but there was a transition period of about a year, that was rather challenging. I know it's not academic, but since some people start homeschooling for non-academic reasons, I thought it might be helpful.
-IG
We only sent our oldest to public school for one year- kinder. But after switching to homeschool her attitude improved greatly and her reading ability shot up like crazy.
-SS
Everyone's homeschool journey is different. They begin at different ages and homeschool for different lengths. We all have our own personal reasons for our “Why” and have different goals for how we want homeschooling to impact our children. You should also notice that it isn't easy. It can take a long time to see the impact you want. It can be hard and tiring to pursue homeschooling, but it was all worth it.
You can read more about our family's homeschooling reasons in my article The Factors Shaping Our Homeschooling Choice
A Glimpse Into Our Comprehensive Course
While this article series offers a snapshot of what homeschooling entails, my in-depth course goes several steps further. It covers everything from setting up your homeschooling space to advanced curriculum planning and much more. Here is the table of contents for everything covered in my comprehensive course “A Parent's Guide To Homeschool.”
Conclusion
As we embark on this 10-part series, we invite you to explore the possibilities of homeschooling. Each article will touch on key aspects, providing a foundation of understanding and preparing you for a successful homeschooling journey. For those seeking a deeper dive, our comprehensive course awaits, packed with insights, tools, and personalized support.
Head to the next article, where we delve into discovering your homeschooling philosophy – a crucial step in tailoring education to your family's unique needs. How to Start Homeschooling: Part 2 Discovering Your Philosophy
